Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1887-01-07
Let Us Have an IcebOat.

Friday Morning...........January Z, 1887.
Let Us Have an IcebOat.
Navigation is again closed on the Poto-
mac and the present probabilities are that
it will remain so for some time to come.
This is nothing unusual, for we are accus-
toned almost every year to look for COM
plete suspension of navigationon on the
upper Potomac for a month or more at
this period of the winter. This is attend
ed with great Inconvenience and often
positive loss to the large number of our
people who live along our extensive river
front and depend exclusively Tor travel
and transportation, and in many cases for
their mails also, upon the Potomac steam
ers. And this loss and inconvenience is
not limi'ed to the people of our county,
but is shared equally by the people along
the river border of Prince Georges and st.
Mary's counties in this State and by a
large area of country in Virginia which
depends upon the Potomac as its exclusive
line of transportation and travel.
But this injury and Inconvenience to
the large number of people in Maryland
and Virginia, as great as it is, does not
compare with the loss and injury which
the annual closing of navigation on the
Potomac entails upon the business men of
Washington and Alexandria. The extent
to which the commerce of these cities suf-
fers from this cause is not generally
understood but is really very great. Not
only is the trade from the Underwater dis
tricts of Maryland and Virginia with
these cities interrupted and often divert
ed elsewhere and the extensive oyster
traffic entirely cut off, but the wholesale
merchants of these cities, who find it
cheaper and better to receive their heavy
freights by water transportation, are liable
at any time at this season to have their
valuable cargoes indefinitely detained and
sometimes greatly damaged tby freak of
the weather piling up an impenetrable ice
blockade. And the damage done to ship
ping from these annual blockades is by
no means uncomfortable.
the great injury that results annually to
the commerce of Washington and the mer-
chant marine from this cause, it seems
strange that no steps have ever been taken
by Congress looking 10 correction Of
this evil. All the other seaboard cities
along the Atlantic coast have not failed
to recognize the injury thus resulting to
their commerce and ample provisions are
made against ice blockades through well
equipped ice boats operated at the public
expense. The capability of these vessels
as now improved, to keep navigation open
in this latitude has been thoroughly dem
Onstrated in the Baltimore harbor.
Is it not strange, then, that Congress
should not take the proper steps to give
the Potomac one or two we'll equipped ice
boats to keep navigation open during the
winter9 Is there any possible excuse for
the national capital being kept so far be-
hind the other seaboard cities of the coun
try and deprived of cheap facilities which
they ali enjoy. Washington has made
rapid strides as commercial city in re-
cent years and is rapidly developing an
active wholesale and retail trade, which
promises to render her population sci f.
sustaining by their own industry and not
dependent as in years past upon the pat
ronage of the government. Her commerce.
if not unduly discouraged by bad govern
ment, will continue to grow with her in
creasing population, until it shall be in
some measure worthy of the great and
magnificent city Washington is rapidly
becoming.
There is no doubt that in the not very
distant future Washington will be the
srandest city OF the Union, and the Pote-
mac, the grand and beautiful waterway
that leads to it, be in no degree inferior
in beauty and wealth to the far famed
Hudson. The people of Southern Mary
land and tide-water Virginia have, there
fore, greater and mere material interest
in the growth of the capital city than that
of patriotic pride. They recognize in the
growth and development of Washington a
certain and corresponding enhancement of
the value of their lands, and look forward
to the time when our entire river border
will be a suburban extension of the great
metropolis.
But to come back to the subject of ice
boats, the excessive trade in live stock
and agricultural products and the general
commerce of our section with Washington
and Alexandria strongly demand that pro-
per steps be taken to keep navigation open
on the Potomac the year around. We
hope that our able representative in Con-
z ess will take this matter into considsra-
ton. We feel sure that he will meet with
q warm cooperation on the part OF the
Representatives from tide-water Virginia
and it is certainly difficult to see what OBJ
lection could be raised to 80 small an out
lay as this measure would involve for the
protection of the commerce of the national
capital. Let US have ice5oats!
The accommodation of the knights of
labor in Canada by the Catholic Cardinal
of that country, and the suspension of the
Catholic priest in New York for his affilia-
ton with the knights there, show plainly
enough the course the Catholic Church
will pursue toward that organization